


miss you

by queerly_yours



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Cemetery, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-10
Updated: 2015-02-10
Packaged: 2018-03-19 15:05:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3614364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queerly_yours/pseuds/queerly_yours
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Hi, mom,” she says as she plucks up pieces of grass. “I miss you.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	miss you

It has been ten years. Ten years since the most horrific day of her young life. If Cora’s being honest with herself, she’s lived longer than she ever thought she would. The Alphas helped keep her alive. Alive…that’s all it was. She didn’t grow as a person or learn anything beyond survival, keeping her head down, and taking orders without smarting off. The years with them only hardened her.

She remembers being so angry with Derek when the pack came to rescue them out of that vault. Not angry because he was alive and she didn’t know, but angry because he was risking his life to save hers. And maybe, just maybe, a little angry that they were being rescued at all.

At the time she didn’t think that her life was worth the risk. Well, sometimes she still doesn’t.

It’s with these thoughts floating around in her mind that she drifts off into a fitful sleep.

-

When she wakes, it’s with a choked off scream. The smells of the scorched flesh and burnt cedar fresh in her nose. The tortured screams of her family and her mother’s fading whimpers still echoing in her head.

She rolls onto her back and just lays there, catching her breath and trying to rid herself of the feeling of being stuck in the remnants of her childhood home.

Gathering what strength she has left, Cora forces herself to get out of bed. She goes straight to the shower to try and scrub away the raw terror of the nightmare.

-

She shouldn’t still be having nightmares she thinks as she makes her way to the cemetery. Shouldn’t still be plagued with guilt for not knowing her brother was out there alive this entire time. Shouldn’t still look over her shoulders every five minutes when they’re out in the city. Shouldn’t, but she is and she does and she will continue to do these things because she is still scared and angry. Not every day, but many more days than she’d like to admit.

Under a beautiful, old oak lies the Hale family plot, her grave included. She’s uncertain who or what was buried there, but does it matter? For all Derek knew she was dead. Hell, she thinks, that little girl might as well be dead for all that we are alike.

Cora sits down in front of her mother’s grave. She does not visit often. It’s difficult to see her own grave, but that isn’t it, not really. Seeing her family like this is not kind to their memory. She prefers her happy memories of them to seeing their resting place, but she always comes on the anniversary to say hello and to grieve.

“Hi, mom,” she says as she plucks up pieces of grass. “I miss you.”

She feels her eyes pool with salty tears and her voice breaks a little, “I love you.”

And that was all it took for the girl who survived it all to break down into tears.

-

Lydia finds her there a little after six with the sunrise coming up over the hills. She’s curled up with her head at her mother’s gravestone, a constant stream of tears tracking down her cheeks. Pulling Cora’s head onto her lap, Lydia rubs smooth circles into her arm with one hand and strokes her hair with the other, consoling her as best she knows how.

It takes some time, but eventually Cora stops crying. She turns herself around so that she can see Lydia’s face and asks, “How did you know?”

With a soft smile Lydia says, “I know what today is. I did the research when we found out about Derek and all the werewolves.” Pausing only to lean down and place a sweet kiss on Cora’s brow she continues, “I know how hard this day is for you and I know that you need to be with your mother.”

“Derek can’t.”

“I know, sweetheart. He disappears into the woods this time each year. His own way of coping with the misplaced guilt.”

Cora nods and snuggles into Lydia’s warmth. It’s cool outside this early and she wasn’t thinking clearly enough to bring a jacket. Lydia was though. She drapes Cora’s coat around her shivering form.

“Are you ready to go home?”

Cora looks up at her. Fierce redhead, gorgeous eyes, creamy white skin, and mine, she thinks. She’s not sure that she’ll ever figure out how Lydia came to love her, but she’s happy that it happened.

“Yes,” Cora says as she gets up from the last place that ever felt home to the only person who ever did. “Let’s go home.”

 


End file.
